Common Lengends - Etymology

Names and Etymology

Ami-chan fights evil AND her homework!

Due to Sailormoon's Japanese origins, as well as using a wide vocabulary of words from other languages, problems arise when fans are trying to determine the proper romanization of phrases in the anime and manga. Many commonly used spellings are actually incorrect. Many fan-coined terms have also slipped into the Sailormoon lexicon. To add to the confusion, when English releases come out, even the proffessional translators get many of the names wrong! This section exists to bring some standardization to the myriad of phrases, and you may be surprised by some of the debunkings here!

A special thanks must go once again to Ian Miller for the hours and hours of research spent on finding these names. If you're curious about the spellings I give, I suggest checking his site because it goes into much more detail than I can possibly give.

When reffering to the Sailors, the only correct way is to write their names as one word, i.e. Sailorjupiter. Only the dub separates the names.
After seeing even review sites getting after people for this, I though I should interject that even the Japanese series uses both the one word and separate word style. If you pick up Japanese merchandise, you will frequently find no consistency on how these should be rendered in English. Many pieces of merchandise will even combine the title into "Prettysoldier Sailormoon", but nobody argues they should be called "Prettysoldiers." The connected katakana that creates the the characters names can indicate either one or two words, and since there's been no official romanization on the Japanese end, berating people for this spelling when it is not incorrect is rather ridiculous. For this site, I will refer to the cast members using the separated names, but when I am talking about the series, I use "Sailormoon" to distinguish between the two.

"Tsukino Usagi" literally means "Rabbit of the Moon."
The actual Japanese characters in the names of the Guardian Senshi are not the actual connecting word "no" (which is a hiragana character), but actually a kanji character that means "field," which is a character that appears in Japanese surnames with great frequency. The name joke is not in the actual spelling, but that it SOUNDS like the Japanese phrase "Tsuki no usagi," which does mean "Rabbit of the Moon." This applies to the names of the rest of the Guardian Senshi as well. Yes, it's extremely confusing to non-Japanese speakers, but nobody ever said sound puns made sense in other languages. When this site refers to the meanings of character names, it is referring to the joke of the name, not what the name really means.

*NEW* Sailor Moon's second weapon is called the Moon Scepter.
Only in the English dub. The Japanese version calls it the Cutie Moon Rod. In the ADV subtitled version of Sailormoon R, despite the fact you can hear the characters call it "Cutie Moon Rod" in English, the subtitles still call it "Moon Scepter." And they were doing so well...

Eternal Sailor Moon's weapon is the Eternal Tier/Tear.
It is in fact the "Eternal Tiare." "Tiare" is French for "tiara," and as you can see, the tip of the weapon is in the shape of an ornate crown (Sailor Moon also loses her tiara when she become Eternal Sailor Moon). A "tier" is a tower, which has nothing to with the rod, nor does "tear."

Sailor Chibimoon communicates with Pegasus using the Stallion Stable/Lav/Lave.
You know, I didn't believe that many people thought this was true until I found it in one of my references. Okay, why the heck would a bell-like item be called a stable? It's called the Stallion Reve. Reve is a French word, not Japanese, and it means "dream." "Stallion Dream" makes much more sense. If the Japanese wanted to say stable, they'd use a different word, as the word for "stable" isn't even close to "reve" in either Japanese or French. The other erroneous translation, "Lav" is at least closer phonetically, but "lav" means "bathroom." Chibi Usa is not carrying a porta-potty either. Furthermore, the ever-popular Sweet Usagi Sailormoon
lists this item as the "Stallion Lav" and that Lav is short for "Lavaliere Microphone," which is a microphone clipped onto one's shirt, and thus the name should fit because Chibi Usa uses the device to communicate with Pegasus. That would be well and good if the Japanese didn't spell "Lavaliere" and "Reve" completely different from each other. "Lave" is just a nonsense translation of "Reve" from Japanese.

*NEW* Sailor Moon's attack with the Cutie Moon Rod is "Moon Princess Elimination".
It's "Moon Princess Halation." Spoken in English. Another ADV subtitling blunder. You know, it's really sad when they got so many of the Japanese terms right and not the English words.

*NEW* Sailor Jupiter has an attack called "Jupiter Oak Revolution."
The phrase is "Jupiter Oak Evolution." "Revolution" got popular during the initial run of Stars and people were only seeing the video and sound clips and going off of what they heard. Since Jupiter spins during the attack, some people got the mistaken impression that it had to be "Revolution." This is a mistake - Jupiter spins in place, thus she is simply rotating. A revolution, in terms of physics, would mean she was circling around a base point (such as how the earth revolves around the sun).

*NEW* Sailor Saturn has an attack called "Silence Glaive Apply."
It's rare that a rumor can be tracked straight to the source, but this one can. The attack is "Silence Glaive Surprise," but it can sound like Saturn is saying "Apply". The "Apply" error came from the now-defunct Sailormoon resource "The Everchanging Sailormoon Gateway," which was one of the first resources for the series on the net. At that time, getting ahold of Japanese merchandise was quite difficult and finding written information for the anime was next to impossible, so guesswork was more common. As such, if Janelle, the webmaster, made an error, the entire community never really noticed. Janelle did realize ages ago that she'd made an error with "Silence Glaive Apply", but by the time she fixed it, the erroneous phrasing had already travelled the net. As such, this rumor is at least 8 years old and still going strong, which just proves how long lasting these things really can be.

*NEW* Sailor Saturn has an attack called "Silence Block."
Another case of people guessing by what they hear and getting it wrong (though Janelle is in the clear on this one.) It's actually "Silence Wall".

The name of the moon princess is Princess Selenity (or) It can be either Selenity or Serenity.
Probably one of the most hotly debated spellings on the net is the name of Princess Serenity. On the one hand, there is a goddess, Selene, who the Serenity line is descended from. However, the spelling of the goddess is significantly different from the way Takeuchi spells "Serenity," and the characters she uses are closer to the ones used in "Serenitatis", which is Latin for Serenity. The manga mentions that the castle was in the Mare Serenitatis, or Sea of Serenity. Hence, the women being named Serenity is a reference to this actual landmark on the moon. Contrary to popular belief, the letters r and l are not interchangeable in Japanese, they are simply difficult to render in English because the sound used for both is somewhere inbetween both, and can often be difficult to decipher without considering context.

Queen Serenity is the incarnation of the goddess "Serene."
And with this we get to start tackling the Season 1 and 2 boxsets put out by ADV. It appears that they did not understand that Serenity is referring to the actual moon goddess "Selene," who has caused enough headaches as it is (see the previous rumor). This line appears in Episode 44.

The dub names of the Outer Senshi are Corrin/Alex/Erica, Nerissa/Michelle, Celia/Susan/Sharon, and Helen/Jane/Victoria/Hortense/etc.
I thought these names would go away when the dubs of S and SuperS ran in North America, but they haven't, so for the benefit of those poor confused dub fans, the correct names for these four characters are Amara, Michelle, Trista, and Hotaru. Yes, Hotaru. Same as her Japanese name. The names Corrin, Nerissa, and Celia come from a limited series of dolls of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto that were sold briefly in Canada after the last 17 dubbed episodes of R aired. Irwin Toys was most likely clearing out stock, because the initial deal when those episodes were dubbed was to extend into S, but DiC, for one reason or another, changed their minds and Irwin was stuck with a series of dolls they needed to sell.

The only appropriate name for the heros is the Sailor Senshi.
While this is what their name is in Japanese, the Japanese show also frequently translates this to "Soldier" when they write the title in English. The new live-action series uses "guardian," which isn't really a translation of Senshi, but seems to be what they want Senshi to mean. It's not entirely uncommon for the chosen English name of a series to not be an accurate translation of the Japanese name (see "Shin Seiki/Neon Genesis Evangelion"). "Soldier" is perfectly acceptable to use. The ADV subtitled version, despite having "Pretty Soldier" on the logos, oddly translates "Senshi" to "warrior," hence "The Sailor Warriors."

The terms Inner Senshi and Outer Senshi are official terms from the show.
I'll bet that threw you for a loop. These terms were actually coined years ago by fans so they could better distinguish between the two groups of Senshi, as they often act independent of each other. Nothing is wrong with using them, but some people think that these are official terms and often get confused about why Jupiter (an outer planet) is considered an Inner Senshi. More accurate terminology for the Inners would be the Guardian soldiers, as the manga frequently calls the first four Sailors "Soldiers of the Four Guardian Deities", or even just "Guardian Soldiers". The Outers are called the Soldiers of the Outer Solar System, so Outers isn't as inaccurate.

The senshi become the Sailor Star Senshi in the Stars arc of the manga.
This is another fan term, though the origins of it are obscure. My best guess is that it came out due to the star theme of the uniforms in the final manga arc. They are also not called Eternal Senshi. Only Sailor Moon gets to be called "Eternal Sailor Moon."

*NEW*The characters in Parallel Moon became Sailor Parallel Moon, Parallel Mercury, etc.
None of these names ever appeared in the story. Kousagi never stated her Sailor name, and though she used "Parallel Moon Power, Make-Up!", this is still not her name. The name of the story is "Parallel Moon," but we're still never told their names.

*NEW* The leader of the Dark Kingdom is Queen Metallia.
Yes, even 10 years after the fact, we can learn that we translated something wrong. The recent reprints of the Sailormoon Manga used "Queen Metaria" in English. While on the surface, this could be seen as a mistranslation, "metaria" is Latin, a feminine noun for "boundaries" or "belonging to boundaries." Since Metaria was sealed within the earth, this is a logical translation. "Metallia" has not appeared in an anime or manga source in English. However, "Metaria" and "Metallia" are pronounced the same, so in addition to the Latin phrase, "Metaria" could also be a play on the word "Metal". So yes, this does mean that 10 years after the manga was first published, we FINALLY have an English name.

The group of men serving Queen Beryl are the Four Generals.
An oldie that seems to have come from a time when nobody knew what this group was called. The Japanese name for these four men is "Shitenno," which means "Four Heavenly Kings." There is a group of four soldier gods known in Asian mythology that are also called the Shitenno, but the similarity ends there. As far as this site is concerned, I'm sticking with Shitenno because it's correct and shorter to type than "Four Heavenly Kings." The men may be reffered to as commanders, but nobody ever calls them generals.

The alien pair from the first arc of SailormoonR are Ail/Earl and Ann.
This pair is difficult to translate because they did not exist in the manga and hence finding a written source for their names is difficult. However, their names are pronounced "Eiru" and "An". This is not how their names are romanized, however. This pair was named from two parts of the English word "alien", which the japanese pronounce as "eirian." The characters used to write "Eiru" are similar to the "al" part, hence his name would be "Al." The characters for "An" are the same used to approximate the "en" part, so her name is actually "En." "Earl" isn't even close pronunciation or spelling wise, and neither is "Ail" (which would sound like "Eye-l"). So, to sum up: Their names are "Al" and "En." ADV chose the spelling "Ali," which was apparently intended to make the pun more obvious in English, though "Eiru" does not approximate all three of those. They retain "En" in the subtitles, but for some reason, "Ann" appears on the box.

*NEW* The name of the tree Al and En tend for is The Doom Tree. This is only the name in the dub. It's actual name is Makaiju. The first two kanji translate to "world of spirits or hell" and the second two translate to "timber trees or wood". So a better translation would be "Hell Tree." ADV, who also released the dub of the first season and R, chose to keep the name "Doom Tree," even in the subtitles, which is not that close (at least for the first part of the word). For the purposes of this site, it's called "Makaiju".

The villains of the second R arc are the Black Moon Family.
The word used in the manga is actually more accurately translated as "Clan," as this villain group is obviously not a group of relatives. Having them all be a family would make such inter-clan romances, such as Petz and Saphir, incestuous when that was not the intent.

The names of the Ayakashi Sisters are Cooan, Beruche, Caraveras/Kalaveras/Kalaberas/etc. and Petz.
The Black Moon clan causes trouble for fans due to the fact many of them have names with various possible romanizations. "Cooan" would be incorrect because the letter "c" does not double as a "k" sound in Japanese. "Koan" is based on the Japanese word for the mineral "kermesite," which is "Koanko" so the appropriate spelling here is "Koan." "Beruche" is the Japanese pronunciation of the name "Berthier", which is the name of the person who discovered the mineral "berthierite." In Japanese, this is rendered as "Berucheko." When you are romanizing her name, it's more logical to write "Berthier" than to leave it in it's Japanese form. "Calaveras" has the most difficulty because she has several letters in her name that often cause confusion in translations. She is named for the mineral "Calaverite," which in itself was named for a county in California called "Calaveras." The context of her name allows us to arrive at the correct spelling. "Petz" is the only one consistently spelled correctly, as she is named for the mineral "Petzite." As it turns out, ADV used the correct spellings for all four of these names.

The two leaders of the Black Moon Clan are Prince Demando/Dimando and Saphiel/Safiru/Saffir.
As both of these characters are named for well-known gemstones, it is much easier determining the appropriate spelling for their names. "Demando" is how the Japanese write the word "Demand," which sounds like "Diamond." This may be related to the fact that the word for diamond in the New High German language is "demand," but it is not clear. "Diamond" is spelled very differently in Japanese. "Safiru" is not, contrary to popular belief, a play on the word "Sapphire." "Safiru" is how the Japanese approximate the French word "Saphir" which actually does mean "sapphire." As we are romanizing instead of using phonetics, the correct rendition would be "Saphir." Other names offered, such as "Safiel" are romanziations based on the sound without taking the meaning into context. ADV used "Saphir", which is correct, but oddly spelled "Demand" as "Dimande," most likely to make the "diamond" reference more obvious, though the spelling is not correct.

*NEW* The true form of Wiseman is "Death Phantom."
Just like the more recent "Queen Metaria" revelation, now we finally get an English name for this menacing figure..."Death Fantom." It would seem, again, like a spelling error (especially considering how they used his name in English twice and spelled "Death" as "Deth" one of those times), but "Fantom" is actually a recognized variant on the word "Phantom." It doesn't change the meaning of the word, but it does affect the spelling. As the reprints are still incomplete, we have yet to see if anything else changes.

The flower possessing Fiore in the R movie is the "Kisenian Flower."
The is not entirely incorrect, as the Japanese wrote her name as "kisenian," and it did appear with this name in Geneon's R movie sub. However, this name is how the Japanese were approximating the word "Xenian," which is the name of a flower. Other flower monsters in the movie were also named for flowers, such as "Glycina" and "Dahlia," so "Xenian" is the correct romanization of the flower's name. The Japanese laserdisc release of the film has "Xenian" written in English on the cover.

One of the Death Busters is named Kaori Knight.
This has been around so long it's sickening, especially since it stems from an early VKLL fansub release. The character's name is "Kaolinite." She is named for the mineral of the same name. "Kaori Knight" makes no sense in relation to the character, as she is not a knight in any way. The Irwin doll box for the S series listed her name as "Kaori Night," but Tokyopop provided the conflicting "Kaori Knight" spelling in their "Sailor Scout Guides," which were translations of a Japanese series of books dealing with SailormoonS. It seems "dub" and "inconsistency" frequently go together. In addition, Geneon's subtitled DVDs call her "Kaorinite," coming close but still not getting the name right.

The first member of the Witches 5 to appear is named Yujial/Eugeal.
Both spellings come from the Geneon english subtitled releases of the S series. This witch is actually named "Eudial," taken from the mineral "eudialyte." "Yujial" is the Japanese render of "Eudial", and "Eugeal" is how Geneon chose to romanize it.

The third member of the Witches 5 to appear is Teruru.
At this point, I am really hating how Japanese is a phonetic language >_< Another Geneon mis-sub. "Teruru" is how the Japanese render "Tellu," which is part of the phrase "tellurite." Another mineral. Next!

The fourth of the Witches 5 to appear is Byruit/Biluy.
Oy. "Viluy" is the name sought here, part of the phrase "viluite", which is rendered in Japanese as "Biryui-seki." The difficulty here is that the Japanese do not have a sound for the Roman letter "V" and generally substitute the "B" sound for this word. The manga takes advantage of this when Viluy disguises herself as "Yui Bido". Thus, the second spelling here is mistaking the "V" for "B". The first is, yes, another Geneon spelling. This one makes little sense, however, since looking at it leaves it hard to even come close to the correct pronunciation.

Cyprine, the fifth witch, has a twin named Puchirol/Pikurol/etc.
The name the Japanese source was attempting to render is actually spelling "Ptilol," for "ptilolite," but the initial sound is unnatural in the language and this portion of the phrase is spelled "puchiroru" in romaji. Geneon chose the romanized "Puchirol," which while not entirely wrong, is ignorant of the name's origin as a mineral.

The monsters of the SuperS series/Dream Arc are called the "Remless."
Geneon, when subtitling the series, also rendered many names based off of phonetics without finding out what the official romanizations of many characters were intended to be. "Remless" is how they chose to render "Lemures." This error is slowly gaining a following because some fans erroneously believe that the creatures were named after the term "REM," which is the state of the sleep period in which the mind begins to have dreams. The origin is actually mythological. The "Lemures", from Roman mythology, is the spirit of a dead member of the household that haunts the living during the Lemuria, the days of May 9th, 11th, and 13th. The Lemures in the anime are the living corpses of the people who had their Dream Mirrors stolen by Nehellenia, while the manga represents them as evil spirits in the shape of black fuzzy balls that absorb dreams and change them into nightmares. Thus, you can see where the mythological dead spirits inspired both the anime and the manga's renditions of the Lemures.

The group of girls serving the Dead Moon are the Amazoness Quartet.
This is a very, very common mistake, and probably the most prevalent of any of these spellings, as it even made it's way into the Geneon DVD releases. The word "Amazoness" is not only non-existant, it is redundant - an Amazon is a female warrior, thus adding the "-ess" suffix is unecessary to make the word feminine. The Quartetto state in the manga they are descended from the ancient Amazones, using the same word they use in their name. When "Amazon" is used in reference to the "Amazon Trio," it is pointed out in the manga that it is reffering to the the Amazon Rainforest, where the Dead Moon Circus is said to have originated, as opposed to the Greek warriors of myth. A more appropriate romanization would be "Amazones Quartetto." "Amazones" is the Greek plural spelling of the word "Amazon". This is probably where the erroneous "Amazoness" term came from. "Quartetto" is the Italian phrase for "Quartet," but it gets confusing because it is also the Japanese rendering of the same word. Takeuchi COULD have been referring to the English word, "Quartet." In this case, the whole phrase might be "Amazones Quartet" or even simply "Amazons Quartet." For this site, I am assuming Takeuchi intended the Italian phrase, and will be using that, though the previous two spellings are acceptable romanizations. And yes, Geneon got this wrong too and used "Amazoness Quartet" -_-;;

The Amazones Quartetto become the Asteroid Senshi at the end of the Dream arc.
While they do become a team of four Sailor Senshi named for asteroids, they actually introduce themselves as the Sailor Quartetto in Act 49. They are never called Asteroid Senshi. This is a fan term that was created when the characters were first introduced because they weren't even named until the manga had almost finished its run.

The priest of Elysion is Elios.
This spelling is based on one Japanese rendering of the name "Helios," which drops the "H", while another rendering keeps the "H". However, both renderings are ways to write the name of the god "Helios," and the names of other residents of Elysion (as well as Elysion itself) are of Greco-Roman origin, such as the Maenads. The connection is more apparent when you consider that Apollo and Helios eventually were referenced as the same god in mythology, and Apollo/Helios' favorite mount was Pegasus, hence why Helios becomes a pegasus (and the manga also has him introducing Chibi Usa to a Pegasus and says it his is favorite mount.) There was no god named "Elios," but there was a "Helios," so why would Takeuchi diverge from the spelling? "Elios" has no meaning, "Helios" does.

The leader of the Dead Moon is Queen Nephrenia/Neherenia/etc.
This name often causes confusion for fans because unlike many villains in the series, this character is not actually named after a mineral. The correct name for this character is Nehellenia. She is named for a Celtic ship goddess, Nehellenia, who in some (incorrect) mythological stories also gained attributes of being a dark goddess. She still has some attributes to the moon. The Dead Moon Circus is shown arriving in the manga in a ship, so the ship theme is still evident. Many fans, still following the mineral pattern, mistakenly thought it was based on the mineral nephrite ("Nepherenia") or neheline ("Neherenia".) A few odd souls have gone to their mythological roots but mistakenly pulled up Helen of Troy, which is an entirely different root name and is spelled differently. It also ignores that her names is "Nehellenia," not "Helen," and offers no explanation for the name's length.

Galaxia's underlings in Stars are the Sailor Animates.
Thanks to Mixx, this is getting to be a more common error. The word is Animamates. It's not that hard, if you've watched Stars, you can hear them saying "Animamates."

The second Sailor Animamate to appear is named "Aluminum Siren."
It's actually Aluminum Seiren. The characters used for her name spell Seiren, which was the original Greek word referring to the Sirens, and she pronounces her name as "Say-wren," not "Sigh-wren."

The third Sailor Animamate to appear is named "Red Crow."
This comes from a mis-translation in the Mixxzine edition of the manga. Her name is actually "Lead Crow." "Red Crow" does not fit the Animamate pattern of using the name of a metal and an animal. It IS a pun, because Crow's hair, skin, and outfit are red (which sounds like lead).

The fourth Sailor Animamate to appear is Sailor Tin Cat.
I thought more people would catch onto this considering her name doesn't sound like "cat." Anyway, it's Sailor Tin Nyanko. "Nyanko" is a girl's name created by adding the suffix "-ko" to the word "Nyan," which is the sound a cat makes (The japanese hear "nyan" instead of "meow"). Sometimes "nyan" can also mean "cat" (similar to how "kero" is both the word for "frog" and the sound frogs make) but "neko" is used more often.

The faerie in the SuperS movie that falls in love with Chibi Usa is Peruru.
This is how his name is pronounced and rendered, but Peruru is Japanese for the French word "Perle," which means "pearl." Perle wears pearls all over his outfit, even on his earrings, so this rendering is more appropriate.

The faerie that kidnaps Chibi Usa in the SuperS movie is Pupuran.
Again, this is the Japanese way of writing out another French word, this time "Poupelin," which is a type of pastry, in theme with his allies Banane and Orangeat, who also had food names.

The leader of the Black Dream Hole is Badianyu/Vadianne.
Both of these are mistranslations of the name "Badiane," the first a phonetic rendering from the Geneon sub, the second from yet another old VKLL blunder. Badiane is French for "star anise," a kind of spice an exotic spice made from the star-shaped fruit of an evergreen tree native to China (hence the star-shape in her headband.)

There is a youma named Murdid/Muhreed.
The youma for episode 11, the form Princess Dream took, was actually named "Murido," which is sort of an anagram on the Japanese rendering of the English word "Dream," which is "doriimu." One way of rendering this to catch the joke is "Maerd," (which I used earlier) but then the correct pronunciation is lost. It's a pun based on an English word. The monsters get it tough, because it's hard to track down sources for their names, but still, some of the translations people give are extremely strange. (Thanks must go again to Ian for helping me with this one!)

The daimon in episodes 99-100 is named Persian Cut.
Again with the VKLL fan sub mistakes, and it's another persistant one. I have no idea where Persian Cut came from, because the daimon's name is "Cenicienta." This is the Spanish name for Cinderella. The daimon was created from a glass slipper, and wore the slipper on it's helmet, so the name is themed.

There is a character in Sera Myu named Roof Mellow.
Sera Myu is the worst as far as erroneous names go because it's harder to find written sources to check up on them, so many fans just write what they hear. "Loof Merrow" is no different. The "loof" is a part of a boat, while a "merrow" is a Celtic mermaid that wears a red feathered cap. A water-based summon in the .hack series bears the name "Merrows", and the series bases most of it's mythology on Celtic influences, which further enforces that this is a recognized mythology character. This name makes much more sense for the female pirate than the nonsensical "Roof Mellow." I don't intend to add many of those names here, but as I worship Hikari Ono-sama I will include her character here.

There is a SeraMyu character named Ru Fei/Lu Fei.
Again, people going off of what they hear, and apparently confusing SeraMyu with Gundam to boot. Her name is actually "Le Fey," which is part of the name of the sorceress "Morgan(a) Le Fay" of Arthurian legend. Le Fey appeared in the vampire musical trilogy, of which many of the names derived from European legend, including other characters like Elizabeth Bathory and Baron Gilles de Reis.

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